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May Day sees world march
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-02 09:38 BERLIN: German and Turkish police clashed with demonstrators on Friday as huge crowds angered by the worst global recession in decades took to the streets worldwide for traditional labour day rallies. In Germany, on course for its biggest slump since World War II, Berlin police made 49 arrests as young demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks and set fire to cars and rubbish bins in the early hours. On Friday tens of thousands of people gathered for May Day rallies across Germany and police were bracing for pitched battles later in the day with far-left demonstrators.
Planned far-right rallies and counter demonstrations were also expected to result in unrest that has been a feature of May 1 for 20 years in Germany. In Berlin 5,000 police were standing by with water cannon, tear gas and batons. In Turkey, several hundred demonstrators battled riot police in central Istanbul, with protesters chanting "hand in hand against fascism", "repression won't stop us" and "long live the revolution and socialism". Turkish riot police staged three charges against hundreds of demonstrators in the Sisli district of the city who had hurled rocks at security forces. At least eight were injured, including two police officers, NTV television said. Rallies were held around the world, with organizers everywhere promising to highlight public anger over the crippling recession, which has seen millions lose their jobs. In France, tens of thousands turned out across the country in a fresh show of force against President Nicolas Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis, six weeks after as many as 3 million took to the streets. In what unions predicted would be the biggest Labor Day turnout in decades, marchers paraded in the cities of Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Grenoble and elsewhere. France's eight main trade unions have agreed to hold united rallies across the country - rather than hold rival May Day events - for the first time since the end of World War II. In Spain, where the government expects nearly one in five workers to be out of a job next year, large crowds of demonstrators gathered in central Madrid, and in Austria, a large crowed gathered in front of Vienna city hall. In Tokyo, some 36,000 people rallied in Yoyogi park, demanding more welfare benefits and others protesting military spending, with many more youths and people in their 20s joining the event than in recent years. In South Korea, some 8,000 workers and students rallied in a Seoul park urging an end to lay-offs and wage cuts caused by the crisis. There were also rallies in Manila and in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. In Russia, about 2,000 demonstrators gathered by a statue of Karl Marx in Moscow waving banners and red Soviet flags. In Russia's second city Saint Petersburg, birthplace of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, police arrested about 100 members of far right and anti-immigrant groups who tried to demonstrate in the center. AFP |
